If we increased the power of the individual states in regards to US federal defense budgets what would occur?
I live in California and feel confident we would not attack Oregon or Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, etc if our emergency state militia defense/natural calamity response force were greatly increased.
We could be better prepared to help our neighbor states in the event of a true disaster of human or weather orientation.
Very complex question and it might be a good one to ask.
I agree that as a means to actually keep the states safer they should institute militias on a large scale. Every citizen capable of carrying an arm should be armed. The citizens will then be formed into local miltias on the county level and state level. These militias will meet on some kind of schedule and have an actual chain of command probably derived from the local elections. If you choose not to be involved then you lose your right to vote.
The militias will act together with the fire departments, police departments and hospital system to act if necessary. They would be capable of acting in defense of an invading force or to react to a natural disaster. The borders would be patrolled by these citizens and if necessary to raise an actual standing army to fight elsewhere in the country the system would be in place to do so in a hurry. But I cannot really fathom a reason to raise an army to fight on someone elses shore as we have defined our borders and everyone has theirs aswell. By removing our standing federal army our foreign policy will adjust and the entire world will rejoice in security knowing we will not be invading them to “protect them or force democracy down their throats”.
Our large federal standing army has forced the rest of the world to stay highly militarized as a deterent to keep us from attacking them. If we removed the threat of aggression from our foreign policy the world would be one hell of a safer place to be. SO lets go to local militias without a large standing army. Sounds like one hell of a plan to me.